Brussels Issues Draft Guidelines for AI Regulation

In December 2018 the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG) released its ‘Draft Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI’, a working document for stakeholder engagement that cites AI as “one of the most transformative forces of our time.” The guidelines emphasise that “an ethical approach to AI is key to enable responsible competitiveness” and provide a list of requirements including Accountability, Data Governance, Design for all, Governance of AI Autonomy (Human oversight), NonDiscrimination, Respect for Human Autonomy, Respect for Privacy, Robustness, Safety, Transparency. A final draft is expected in March 2019. The Guidelines are not intended as a substitute to any form of policymaking or regulation, which will be dealt with in the AI HLEG’s second deliverable: the Policy & Investment Recommendations, due in May 2019.

Australia Expands Accountability Regime

The recently-released report from Australia’s Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry recommended that ‘BEAR’ (the Banking Executive Accountability Regime) should be expanded to all Australian Prudential Regulation Authority-regulated financial services institutions. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne called for a phased rollout of the regime, with the next step covering superannuation (pension) providers. The BEAR legislation was introduced in 2018 to make senior financial executives including (Chief Information Officers and Chief Technical officers) personally accountable for IT compliance.

Revolut Agrees Partnership with Clausematch

UK digital bank Revolut has partnered with London-based RegTech firm ClauseMatch to streamline the management of its internal policies, controls and regulatory compliance. The partnership was confirmed after a trial period of several months where ClauseMatch assisted Revolut to map regulations to internal policies and identify potential automation of risk and compliance functions.

In 2017 ClauseMatch partnered with Barclays to help the bank with global policy management and compliance.

Broadridge Acquires PivotData and Sol Hedge Regulatory Reporting Functions

Global fintech provider Broadridge Financial Solutions has acquired certain private fund regulatory reporting capabilities from New York-based PivotData, a data warehouse and compliance reporting solutions platform for the investment community, and its partner Sol Hedge. Broadridge will leverage their capabilities to help private fund asset managers meet their regulatory reporting requirements.

“PivotData and Sol Hedge’s proprietary data transformation, normalization and load (ETL) processes and in-house compliance experience will provide clients with a reliable, cost-effective and timely regulatory reporting solution,” said the firm.

Cube Joins MetLife Japan for RegTech Pilot

Global regulatory intelligence provider Cube has been selected by MetLife Insurance to take part in a regulatory intelligence and change management pilot project at its Asia innovation centre LumenLab, as part of its open innovation programme, Collab 4.0. The program invites six finalists (from around 140 applicants across 40 countries) to compete for a JPY10 million ($91,000) contract to pilot their solutions with the firm’s Japan business.

CUBE is an enterprise-scale platform that leverages AI to capture financial services regulatory intelligence and automate the process of managing regulatory change.

Broadridge Acquires to Extend Regulatory Reporting Offer

Broadridge Financial Solutions has extended its regulatory reporting offer for asset managers with the acquisition of certain private fund regulatory reporting capabilities from PivotData, a data warehouse and compliance reporting solutions platform for the investment community, and its partner Sol Hedge. PivotData and Sol Hedge’s proprietary data transformation, normalisation and load processes, as well as their in-house compliance experience, are expected to provide asset management clients with a reliable, cost-effective and timely regulatory reporting solution.

CubeLogic Adds CubeWatch Sentiment Analysis

CubeLogic has added CubeWatch sentiment analysis to its portfolio of business intelligence driven risk management, workflow and reporting solutions. CubeWatch monitors social media and other data sources, and automatically organises, filters, translates, scores and weights data collected to provide risk management practitioners with insight into market, geographical and climate related events in real time. The solution is offered as a standalone product or integrated with CubeLogic’s RiskCubed platform.

NICE Actimize Extends Financial Crime Capability

NICE Actimize has established a financial crime consulting and advisory practice and introduced a target operating model designed to pinpoint client objectives, create a technology roadmap and establish an enterprise operational plan.

The consulting practice is working with clients to evaluate the people, process and technology aspects of financial crime programmes, identify inefficiencies and provide guidance on reducing costs and improving effectiveness of existing programmes.

The practice and methodology are part of NICE Actimize’s vision of autonomous financial crime management that could unify and mitigate risk through targeted use of big data, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and robotic process automation.

RegTech Market Worth $12.3bn by 2023, Says New Report

A new report from MarketsandMarkets suggests that the global regtech market could grow from USD 4.3 billion in 2018 to USD 12.3 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23.5%. Key drivers include the increased cost of compliance, adoption of regulatory sandbox approach, and low entry barriers for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based offerings. The large enterprises segment is expected to hold the largest market share, as most publicly traded companies are compelled to adopt regulatory programs. North America is expected to dominate in geographical terms.

BIG Offers Blockchain Course for Crypto Investigations

BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group (BIG), a Vancouver-based developer and provider of blockchain and cryptocurrency search, risk-scoring and data analytics tools and investigation services, claims to have launched the “world’s first” investigator-developed, eight-hour online certification course for cryptocurrency investigations. Originally created for US law enforcement officials, the course has been adapted for use by finance and compliance professionals and consists of five fee-based modules including a detailed forensic review of cryptocurrency transactions and covering a variety of crypto crimes. Completion earns the credential of “Certified Cryptocurrency Investigator” from BIG.